Cruising the Baltic Sea
We finally made it! After YEARS of dreaming to visit Europe, we finally made it a reality and couldn’t be happier. This summer we booked a cruise sailing the Baltic Sea on the Norwegian Dawn; starting in Stockholm, Sweden visiting Finland, Estonia, Lithuania, Poland, and Germany, and finishing our trip in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Just as we always expected, cruising provided a good sample of many locations, and we left only wanting more.
Here is a sneak peek of the many places we visited throughout our trip, but make sure to check out the individual location articles to see and read about all of our adventures!
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Table of Contents
- Day 1/2 – Travel Day
- Day 3 – Stockholm, Sweden
- Day 4 – Embarkation
- Day 5/6 – Helsinki, Finland
- Day 7 – Visby, Sweden
- Day 8 – Tallin, Estonia
- Day 9 – Klaipeda, Lithuania
- Day 10 – Gdynia (Gdanks), Poland
- Day 11 – Wernemunde (Berlin), Germany
- Day 12 – At Sea
- Day 13 – Amsterdam, Netherlands
- Day 14/15 – Travel Day
Day 1/2 (Saturday/Sunday, August 13/14, 2022) – Travel Day
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In order to maximize our vacation time, we opted for a cruise that left on Monday, which left us all weekend to travel, recover from travel, and still see the disembarkation port before we had to get onboard. We also selected flights that would arrive in the afternoon, so we could head straight to bed and sleep off any jet lag. This turned out to be a perfect pre-trip combination that we will repeat.
Starting Saturday morning, we loaded up the car and headed downtown to Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport. While PHX has been a great airport to use, it’s not a main hub for Delta, so we took an easy flight over to SEA before boarding our long 10-hour flight to Amsterdam.
It’s no surprise that beginning our first international flight we were nervous about being on a plane for so long and how we would handle sleeping or keeping ourselves entertained.
The first thing that I realized was that there was no chance of sleeping. While we did a great job selecting seats that left us by ourselves, it was early afternoon when we boarded and we just weren’t tired. Doing the math we realized we wouldn’t be tired until our flight from Amsterdam to Stockholm, which was way too short to actually sleep. Instead, I downloaded a few books and Nan loaded up on movies and we easily kept ourselves entertained the entire flight.
The second thing I realized is how low my expectations were for food onboard. While we have had first-class flights before with full meals, and we knew there would be food service for the entire flight, it just didn’t really click that they would feed us.
After we had settled at altitude, the stewards started passing out “table settings” (see gray bundle on the left). The gray wrap was actually a place mat to cover your tray and within had utensils and napkins for the meal.
Then they brought around the meals. We had a choice between chicken parmesan and some vegetarian options that I can’t remember now.
We both chose chicken, and they gave us a tray full of food. Chicken parm was okay, in the picture you can see the breaded chicken on top and the noodles underneath. I wouldn’t rave about it, but as mentioned I had low expectations, so a warm meal is better than nothing! Plus, they had a pasta salad and dessert.
Fast forward towards the end of the flight and a similar process occurred, this time for the ‘snack’ which turned out to be breakfast with an egg muffin sandwich and fruit.
I was less excited about breakfast, but Nathan was happy with both dinner and breakfast and ate everything!
The final surprise of the flight was the views as we were arriving. First, out in what we believe was the North Sea, there were windmill farms. While the farms were no surprise, I had never seen them in the water. Which meant the water was also surprisingly shallow there. Next, pretty quickly after that view, we started to see Amsterdam and how much water and green you could see. While we wouldn’t get an opportunity to see Amsterdam up close until the end of our trip this was an amazing first sight and I was ready to come back.
Once landed, we headed into Schiphol Airport, which was a beautiful building with a modern utilitarian feel. We were worried about how passport control and transferring flights would go, but it was super easy. We followed the signs to our next gate, and in doing so it takes you directly through passport control, with absolutely no way to miss it.
After waiting in line for no more than 30 minutes, we got to the border agent. They asked us how long we were in Amsterdam for. This confused us a little as we weren’t really staying at that moment (only a layover) but we briefly explained our trip and that we were flying home from Amsterdam later (not that the agent cared) and he took our total of two days in Amsterdam as the final answer.
Then after years of traveling to numerous countries with our passport we FINALLY got our very first stamp!!
While totally silly to think that was even a small goal of this trip, it still feels pretty damn great to finally have a record of our travels :).
After that, we made our way to the KLM boarding gate for our quick flight from Amsterdam to Stockholm. While I was absorbed in my book, Nathan had the unfortunate luck to sit next to a very talkative and opinionated couple from San Diego, CA. Leave it to us to find an American who we disagreed with on just about everything he said. We both panicked when they mentioned they were also doing a Baltic Sea cruise, but we had just enough luck that they were going with Oceania, not NCL.
After that unfortunate hour of waiting to board, and exhaustion starting to hit us, we were happy to have a quiet flight. We rarely fly other airlines and this was our first international airline, so it was fascinating to see the similarities and differences.
Instead of the classic Delta pretzels or Biscoff cookies, KLM provided everyone with a cheese sandwich, complete with an origin story. Basically, it is a Dutch tradition to take a sandwich with you so you always have a tasty snack!
Not being hungry myself, Nathan gave it a try and concluded it wasn’t bad. A little dry since it was literally just bread and cheese, but you could tell it wasn’t the bread or cheese we would normally have in the USA.
Once we had landed in Stockholm, I was pleasantly surprised at how much Arlanda Airport (ARN) reminded me of Idaho Falls Airport (IDA). It was smaller and super easy to navigate. We quickly made our way to the Arlanda Express to head to downtown Stockholm and our hotel.
Stockholm Airport is about 30-60min from downtown depending on which transportation you select. They have a public train that you can use with their travel passes, or the Arlanda Express is a private high-speed train that can get you downtown in 30 minutes. It costs a little more, but I would definitely recommend that route because it was incredibly easy to use from the purchase of tickets online to boarding and disembarkation locations.
From Stockholm Central where the Arlanda Express arrived, we used the subway to travel 3 stops to the station closest to the hotel. From there it was a short 10-15 minute walk to our hotel. It was a little more awkward than intended with all our luggage and the surprisingly uneven cobblestone roads and sidewalks, but we made it!
Being a Hilton Diamond member is definitely one of the better perks we have with the Amex Platinum (guaranteed Gold) and the amount of travel we do. Check-in was easy, and we got a nice room upgrade. Though I still can’t get over the bathroom…it was odd, to say the least.
It didn’t take us long to call back home, taking advantage of the timezone overlap, and settle into bed for a long night’s sleep to be ready for the two weeks yet to come!
Day 3 (Monday, August 15, 2022) – Stockholm, Sweden
Click here to read all about our adventures in Stockholm!
Day 4 (Tuesday, August 16, 2022) – Embarkation
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Even though we were across the world in an entirely different country, embarkation day was basically the exact same as it is in the USA.
We weren’t able to arrange a cruise terminal transfer, but thankfully there were taxis queued at the hotel and we were able to easily get over to the cruise terminals.
Once there we were very happy to see that there are no porters like there are in the USA that you have to tip. While there are still employees collecting your bag, it felt more organized, plus we were able to avoid the awkward tipping moment, which we always hate.
Going through check-in and security was the exact same as normal and we were quickly onboard ready to explore.
Coming Soon! Check out our review of the Norwegian Dawn for more ship details!
After we had our classic embarkation brunch, since we always skip breakfast when we are getting on a ship, we wandered around until it was time to sail away.
It didn’t take too long after leaving the port, and enjoying the views of Stockholm, that we realized this did not feel like a normal port departure. There was still land and islands surrounding us everywhere we looked. Now we knew the ocean wasn’t on the itinerary, but we should have started to see the open sea, at last, based on past ocean cruise experience.
But oh no! We were in for a treat as it took HOURS to navigate out of the archipelago and hundreds of islands that protect Stockholm. We spent as much time as we could just watching. We passed island after island and we were in awe of the homes and small towns that existed throughout until it was too dark to see anything and we headed back inside.
In addition to the homes and islands, we saw multiple ferries. Silja was one of the most common ones we saw and even looked into their overnight ferry to Helsinki and other places, which we will definitely keep in mind for future trips. Traveling via ferry is just not something you consider closely, growing up in the USA.
Unlike past cruises, we didn’t go to a single evening entertainment the entire trip and instead we made it back to our room for an evening movie and bed for another eventful day ahead of us.
Day 5/6 (Wednesday/Thursday, August 17/18, 2022) – Helsinki, Finland
Click here to read all about our adventures in Helsinki!
Unfortunately, this is where our trip started to detour and while we were thankfully able to make the most of our two weeks in Europe, it wasn’t quite the trip we wanted. By Thursday, I wasn’t feeling 100%. We chalked it up to jet lag and excitement overload leading to exhaustion, but we wanted to be cautious so while it wasn’t required we pulled out masks and limited our time in public areas. While thankfully nothing serious happened throughout the trip, this was just the start :(.
Day 7 (Friday, August 19, 2022) – Visby, Sweden
By Friday, Nathan was also starting to feel something was off. Mostly we were exhausted with aches and because Visby was a short excursion, we decided we didn’t want to miss out. So with masks, hand sanitizer, and limiting our public exposure as much as we could just in case we headed out.
Once outside walking around, we realized this wasn’t going to be an option at future ports, and we needed to rest before we could do anything else.
Click here to read all about our adventures in Visby, albeit a very short day!
Day 8 (Saturday, August 20, 2022) – Tallinn, Estonia
After spending all Friday afternoon resting, and we only felt worse, we knew we couldn’t risk going on our excursions in Tallinn. Not only could we barely walk during our tour of Visby, Tallinn was supposed to be even longer and more difficult. Plus now that it had been days of not feeling well, we really didn’t want to risk getting anyone else sick.
One of the worst pieces is we had pre-booked all of our excursions on Day 1 and you needed to cancel 48 hours in advance to get a refund. So we were just out the money for the next few days, and we decided to wait one more day and see how we felt before we gave up on our Berlin excursion.
Missing out on Tallinn was also a big disappointment for Nathan, as it was one of the core places he had wanted to visit as part of this trip. While losing out was sucky, it was actually one of the reasons we were ok to skip. We knew we would be back, and we would rather wait and make sure we were able to experience it to the fullest.
Just based on what little we could see from the port, we knew it was going to be the perfect mix of new and old. Their port terminal was such a beautiful building with stadium seating to watch the boats and a playground to keep kids entertained.
We were even surprised to be docked next to a US Warship, which seemed to be setting up for an event of sorts on deck.
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Day 9 (Sunday, August 21, 2022) – Klaipeda, Lithuania
After a day and a half of solid rest, we agreed to venture out to Klaipeda. We still decided to skip our excursions as we knew it would be long and once you head out you are stuck. If we were on our own, we could at least turn back to the ship if it became too much.
Plus while we always want to see and experience more, Klaipeda wasn’t at the top of our list so we wanted to try and explore things now as it was unlikely we would make a trip back.
We decided to keep our Berlin excursion. We desperately wanted to go and we were at least feeling a little better so we hoped that there wouldn’t be any issues.
Click here to read all about our adventures in Klaipeda!
Day 10 (Monday, August 22, 2022) – Gdynia, Poland
By Monday, I was back to 100%, but Nathan was still struggling. Gdynia was another port that we were so disappointed to give up, but we just couldn’t risk it.
Not only was Nathan still not feeling well, but our excursion was supposed to be a long intense day at a concentration camp. Since we were going to visit one in Berlin we decided it was best to give up one more port and rest to ensure we were good enough to go out Tuesday and experience Berlin.
While we didn’t get to explore, Gdynia was a fascinating port. Cruising as much as we have you see a lot of industrial ports as well as ports built just for tourists. Gdynia was ALL industrial, but not shipping as you would expect. This port was surrounded by coal! It was both fascinating and disturbing knowing how much surrounded us and it was clearly a core shipping item.
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Day 11 (Tuesday, August 23, 2022) – Warnemunde (Berlin), Germany
Click here to read all about our adventures in Berlin!
Day 12 (Wednesday, August 24, 2022) – At Sea
Since Nathan was still not back to 100% yet, our only sea day of the trip was a rather low-key one. We hung out in our room watching movies, reading, and resting.
At this point of the trip, we were definitely missing home. Not only did we have to deal with being sick onboard, two weeks away is glorious, but still a long time.
Day 13 (Thursday, August 25, 2022) – Amsterdam, Netherlands
Coming soon! Click here to read all about our adventures in Amsterdam!
Day 14/15 (Friday/Saturday, August 26/27, 2022) – Travel Day
Since we were docked in Amsterdam overnight, our disembarkation on Friday was even easier than prior cruises. Thursday we had scouted the walk from the cruise terminal to the train station so we were ready to go, though thankfully we were not in a rush because our flights weren’t until Saturday.
We chose to disembark with our luggage so once we had to vacate our rooms, we found our way downstairs to deck 4 where they were disembarking passengers. Unfortunately, there were some serious communication issues with the staff and there was a MASSIVE line to leave the ship. We were near the beginning of the line and there was little to no movement for almost an hour. Definitely one of the worst experiences we have had disembarking from the cruise.
Oh and cherry on top (not), they took my power strip again, but this time they were not posted near the doors to return the items. So I decided losing a $15 power strip was worth not losing our spot in line.
Once we were out of the ship, it was an easy walk over to the Amsterdam train station. There was a little bit of confusion and debate over which train tickets we needed to purchase. We ultimately chose correctly, but even now we are not entirely sure what the difference was other than prices.
One of the best things about Amsterdam and Schiphol Airport is there is a Hilton (and Marriott) property inside the airport, so naturally that is where we choose to stay to make our flights the next day super easy.
As we walked to the airport doors, we were extremely impressed with the clear signage, especially to the airport. They even used some funky symbols for the parking garages instead of boring colors or names. Then we had to use the weirdest escalator we had ever seen. There were no steps, just a moving incline… talk about a core workout to hold yourself and your luggage without rolling back down!
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While we always choose to stay at Hilton’s, this one was impressive and our Diamond membership came in VERY handy. It was a quick train ride to the airport, and the signage to the hotels was honestly impressive, so we arrived at the check-in desk before 10 am. We knew it was a long shot to get our room, so we were hoping to just drop off our bags and go explore the airport as much as we could.
To our surprise, our Diamond status trumped that plan and they gave us a room key right then and upgraded to their suites! They also let us know that we could head over to breakfast and grab something quick before it shut down for the day. Naturally, we couldn’t pass that up so we dropped off our bags in the room and went down for a quick bite.
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Once we felt more settled, we decided to explore the airport and ensure we were prepared for our morning flight. Now that our trip was coming to an end, and we were at Schiphol, we had to be sure what the experience would be like in the morning. There had been so much news over crazy long lines, missing flights, and all-around chaos that we were concerned.
We found the baggage drop off pretty easily and that led us to the line for security checks. After about 5-10 minutes of trying to trace the line around the building, down the stairs, and then outside…we realized that it may be just as bad as everyone had said. Since we now knew where to go, all we could do was wait and make sure we were there 4 hours early to security (they were actually checking tickets to enforce this which was really nice to see they were trying to minimize the issues they were having).
Interestingly we realized, that the airport seemed to actually be set up to handle this craziness on a regular basis. They had paths, tents, and other support that made it seem like lines were always a problem, just a little worse over the summer.
Once we felt like we had our plan for Friday, we started to explore.
Somehow we found ourselves on the roof of the airport, where they clearly used to be a restaurant/bar area. They also had a plane museum of sorts which was interesting to read about. The rooftop gave a perfect line of sight to watch the planes, which Nathan was happy to do for hours if he could. Sadly, it was cold and we didn’t exactly plan to be outside so our jackets were still in our room.
After that, we headed down to the main area of the airport. It’s a little hard to explain, but just like airports have a ton of shops and restaurants past security, Schiphol actually had a surprising amount to do before that. The train station deposits passengers directly in this main area, so it makes sense that it is a little bit more than a normal airport would have.
We walked around for a while, checking out all the shops and finding ways to kill time since we had all afternoon.
Once we had explored everywhere we could find we walked back to our room and hung out for a while until it was time for dinner.
Since we knew all the dinner options available to us through the airport, we ultimately decided the hotel restaurant was our best option
We took their Asian influence to heart and Nathan got stir-fry, I chose their bao buns and dim sum to taste test. This was the first time we had actually tried dim sum, and we were impressed. Definitely something we will try again in the future.
The next morning we quickly got everything ready and made our way down to the baggage check. There weren’t really any lines there, so while we had a small issue getting the baggage check to work right it wasn’t too bad.
Next, we headed upstairs to the security check, and we were so happy to find a very reasonable line. It didn’t even snake far enough to go down the stairs and or outside. I was surprised that all security checks were in full use, once again indicating they were always busy, and anything reported in the news and such was just taking it to another extreme.
Unfortunately, TSA Pre-check doesn’t count for international airports, so Nathan ran into some issues with his technology devices and ensuring they were all separated and scanned individually. No surprise that he was a little grumpy about that, but all in all I would take this experience any day over the nightmares we had heard going into this trip.
Once through security, we had a few hours before our flight, so we wandered around. We landed on McDonald’s for something to eat. It feels like a common occurrence for us after a long trip to want something simple and consistent from home, no more ‘unknowns’.
We made sure to find our way to the “famous” clock, which was fun to watch the animation for a while.
We did try to get into a lounge, but due to capacity issues, all the lounges we had access to through Priority Pass were at capacity so we had to just hang out in the general airport areas.
Finally, it was time to get on the plane and start our way home. Our first flight was from Schiphol to Minneapolis, MN (MSP). The flight turned out to be very similar to our way out, I read and Nathan played Civ 5 on his laptop the entire way.
The food turned out pretty good this time with a caprese salad, pasta, and ice cream.
Though we did pass on the second snack, I can’t remember what it was now.
Once we landed in MSP, it was time to experience entering the US for the first time from an international flight. Just like on the way out, there was no way to ‘take a wrong turn’ like I expected. Everything fed directly into customs.
A day or two earlier, I realized my TSA Pre-Check and Global Entry had expired on my birthday, which happened while we were enjoying ourselves in Helsinki. This meant Nathan was able to skip the custom line and head straight through the Global Entry check, which was totally worth it. I, on the other hand, had to stand in line with everyone else.
Funny enough, it really didn’t save us any time. Nathan waited and collected our bags, which were waiting just on the other side of customs, and by the time I made it through customs he had our bags and we were on our way.
Since this was a connecting flight for us we followed the path that fed you right back into a special security checkpoint for connecting flights (the only other option being to leave the airport and stay in Minneapolis). Once again, directions were pretty hard to miss and we quickly dropped our bags off at a mini-bag attendant sign, no tags were even needed since they printed everything at the beginning.
We had to go back through security and this was a not-so-great part. Since it was a mini version, just like the bag attendant, they didn’t have TSA Pre-check. While it wouldn’t have helped me anyway, it was still annoying to have to pull everything out of our bags again (laptops, cell phones, tablets, etc. get really old when going through security!).
After that, it was a very normal easy flight home. We picked up our car from long-term storage and were pleasantly surprised that the battery didn’t seem affected at all sitting so long. An hour drive home and our trip was officially over!
Even though we ended up getting sick and that ruined a few stops, this is still by far one of our favorite trips and we cannot wait to get back to Europe and continue to find new places to visit or repeat some of the places above and experience them in greater detail.
If you would like to read more about our review of this cruise, cruise line, or the stops we made along the way, here are some quick links for you!
Welcome!
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